Vijay Mallya: Smart Millionaire or Poor Businessman?

And on a recent note, The United Spirits (a subsidiary of the UB Group) will soon become a part of the Diageo Company (The Indian arm of the world's largest spirits company). Since Diageo has the international expertise, the company will be able to bring in high-end stake holders for United Spirits, so this acquisition will turn out good for Vijay Mallya and for Kingfisher. Vijay Mallya will become a minority shareholder with a 14.9 percent stake. For the time being, he will remain the chairman of the company.

While clarifying that the money coming in with the Diageo deal will not be used for Kingfisher Airlines' revival, Mallya had said: "Each individual company is a public entity. So the Kingfisher Airlines issues will be resolved by the Kingfisher Airlines and UB Holdings. It would be unfortunate if you try to link this transaction with the airline. Let’s not cross contaminate everything and interrelate everything," as quoted by Business Today.

The deal closed for the crown jewels of Vijay Mallya, the United Spirits, to Diageo, is said to be around 2.1 billion dollars. Mallya often described by those close to him, as a man with nine lives. He has indeed been in umpteen scrapes before and has also been able to easily come out of it. The general outlook is that his luck has definitely run out, but by doing this deal with Diageo he's actually doing a smart thing, getting the 10th life perhaps, as reported by ET.